It's been a while since there's been an SSD thread.

I'm doing an upgrade soon and I'm tempted to get a single 30Gb SSD drive for windows and commonly used apps and dump all my music\movies\photos on my current normal HDDs, and eventually get a NAS setup for that kind of data as well. Though I have a few questions for those who might have them here.

1) Any particular brands to get\avoid?
2) Is there much speed difference? that's my main reasoning for wanting one, and to keep my data and OS\apps separated
3) If you have one yourself how has your experience with them been so far?


The one I am currently looking at is this one, not looking to do RAID with it or anything.

OCZ 30Gb Core Series V2 SSD R:170MB/sec W:98 MB/sec $159.00

from what I've read and now (to a lesser extent) experienced myself, there's a vast difference between the bottom end and top end

I've got an intel X-25M in my machine and it rips for both reads and writes, but my son recently bought an eeepc 701sd which has a tiny little ram-module-sized 8gb ssd drive in it, and it's completely atrocious for doing writes. I mean to the point where the computer is completely frozen from anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds or so while it finishes writing anytime you try and do anything

I've never tried those ocz ones, I think they're kind of in the middle in terms of write speeds and write lifetime

OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD $368 @ umart imos

is 30GB really enough for peoples games and windows and apps?

edit: nm i see you just want it for your OS and apps, there's a 30GB version of it also - i reckon these "vertex" series represent the most value on the current market

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3535

Basically, the only good ones on the market at the moment are the Intel x25 and the OCZ vertex range, and to a lesser extent some of the samsungs. If you have or buy anything else, sux2bu.

well judging from the price of the OCZ 30Gb Vertex I think I'm probably better off waiting a bit longer til the technology has matured a bit and the price has come down.

I'd go for a Vertex or Apex if you can spare the extra dosh. As already mentioned, OCZ or high-end Intel are the way to go, but you get what you pay for. A lot of other brands and models have performance on par with HDDs, so shop carefully. We have the OCZ Core 2 in a few machines at work, and they are pretty decent. Windows and Photoshop load up pretty fast but don't expect to be blown away. I think PS loads in about 3 seconds but OS boot or using apps which page file a lot is where you'll really notice.

There's also the problem with write speed degradation with cheaper MLC (multi layer cell) SSDs. Over time, the write speed will become crippled due to limitations in the hardware and the write strategies currently employed by the drives. The thing that makes the Intels so great at the moment is their write strategy used by the drive. They usually take longer to experience slow down due to wear, and get great read/write speeds. Performance degradation isn't such a problem with the more expensive SLC drives, check out the prices for a laugh.

OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD

bang for buck sees the Vertex being king atm

I'm definately gonna grab one

If youre gonna be gaming i'd suggest getting a larger SSD like an 80gb to fit games on it.

Ok well I've decided not to get an SSD for now, that leaves me with another question.

I've currently got a 250Gb and a 200Gb in my machine, I'll be keeping these but I'd like to get another drive just for windows\apps. Mainly for ease of use so I can just throw another drive in when I upgrade the CPU\MB\RAM, install windows and keep my data on the old drive as a backup. I'm not too concerned about HDD space, what I have now is adequate but I would always use more if I had it :)

My question is:
Which would be faster day to day use for putting windows on?

a 160GB Western Digital 7200rpm 8M Serial ATA/300 HDD which would pretty much only have windows\apps.

OR

if the speed would be the same, spend a bit more and get a 1TB Samsung 7200rpm 32M SATA HDD?

would seek time be faster on the smaller drive? less fragmentation? or is the difference negligible? I'm not gonna be f***ing around with RAID so this is a bare bones HDD setup I'm talking about here.

Get a Bigger drive - one with 320GB platters and partition a small (first) partition for low access times

Called short stroking or some s***

short stroking? I'm sold

Jim X25-M's look OK, but the X25-E looks f***ing insaaaaaaane

Where did you get yours from???

Dude, don't get a 30gig version. Spend a bit more and at least go the 120gig like I did. By the time you install windows and any apps you'll have bugger all space left.

I have WoW on that drive and loading up the game takes less than 10 secs and using the hearth stone like from Org to Northrend takes about 5 secs with no lag. Plus that also has alot to do with my CPU and vid card I guess. Also Crysis loads incredibly fast as well.

So yeah, put all the s*** you mainly use on that drive and chuck everything else on some nice 600gig or 1TB HDD's.

jmr: betterit I think
the X25-E is better but even more ridiculously priced - kind of in the enterprise budget, not so much for home use =]

I have WoW on that drive and loading up the game takes less than 10 secs and using the hearth stone like from Org to Northrend takes about 5 secs with no lag.

True of any modern computer.

So was it worth the $600?

I still have the X25-E in my work machine that I'm still.. "evaluating" 6 months later... if I had to give it up I'd be a very sad panada...

Wetwired, avoid 3.5" Samsung drives like the plague. Go for one of the new Seagate 1TB or larger. They use the higher density platters as jmr mentioned. Higher bit density = less head movement = better response times. It's not going to come close to matching a good SSD, but it's your best bang for buck platter-based option.

One of my mates was telling me about people getting insane performance out of old sub-100GB single platter hard drives by putting half a dozen of them in a striped array but only using like the first 10GB of each hard drive. This of course would require a fairly expensive RAID controller and PSU, it's more of a point of interest than a suggestion :)

So was it worth the $600?

For WoW?
Definately not

For when he want's to come clean an play decent games, all is good! (mebe not forgiven)

Clearly you want a 750GB STec ZeusIOPS. they're even available in sata-II interface.

They leave those crummy X25-E for dead.

Avoid using a SSD for your OS m8... I am talking from experience and have tried a few SSD's

Your OS will stutter and even though things will load fast you are better off with a raptor. The technology is not refined enough yet for running the windows OS of a SSD

I currently run raided Raptors and run some games off the SSD

You can always change settings etc (removing prefecthing data etc but it will still stutter a bit)

Hope this helps.

Avoid using a SSD for your OS m8... I am talking from experience and have tried a few SSD's

Your OS will stutter and even though things will load fast you are better off with a raptor. The technology is not refined enough yet for running the windows OS of a SSD

have you tried recent-ish tech in the upper end? cos as I said, I'm using an intel x25 for exactly that right now and it basically makes what you're saying completely false and from what people are writing, even ones that aren't as expensive like the OCZ offerings are quite good as well.

Probably bought a cheap JMicron controller based ssd, poor bastard.

80gb intel x25-m shipped from the states for $450, seriously dicks all over the 300gb velociraptors.

The OCZ Vertex supposedly don't suffer from the stuttering like their older drives, much the reason why their benchmark numbers aren't as high as the ones that do.

@ Jim & Ex

I tried one of the http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_671&products_id=11435 (might have been the model before this one though, cant actually recall as my memory is going in my old age (30) lol)

I then switched across to the Raptor and it made a huge difference. Also after going through a million suggestions in the internet finally just gave up on it all together because people were saying the technology was not refined enough.

I am happy to stick with the new raptor drives , quiet and extremely zippy . Maybe in a year or two once they have got flash technology really zooming with its read/write issues solved Ill be coming back to it.

actually that time is already here :) in fact has been for a while - just have to choose the right brand/model. price is the only issue in that respect, not performance

this is what I'm running my o/s on and it eats my raptor: http://www.betterit.com.au/scripts/prodview.asp?idproduct=123328&idAff=40


actually after this thread I'm interested in sussing the ocz ones now, might zip over to umart and nab one, see how it goes

grabbed one, stuck it in me alienware lappy, putting windows7 on it now in the background

done, posting this from a fresh install of windows7 installed to the above ssd
nice and zippy, no stuttering or anything out of the ordinary

while seagate are bad, they do cover shipping and replacement costs pretty well.

x25-E sounds nice but hell expensive.. $730 for 30GB, barely fit an os on it, fkn bs

the x25e is an enterprise drive basically, look at the x25m for desktop. still expensive but a lot less so

Another thing, we run Outlook at work and since moving my cache folder onto the SSD (a little over 2Gig for me) Outlook has actually become a joy to use.

seven point three !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

boba is being a f***in smartass as usual cuz thats all he knows how to do but basically after Jim got the SSD installed on the laptop, I got him to run the Windows Experience Index, which obviously isnt rock solid for comparisons it does serve as a good quick rough baseline not requiring the additional software.

the SSD primary hdd got a WEI score of 7.3, which is pretty bloody good considering my hdd's which arent slow can only do 5.8. Obviously it needs to be taken in context, I'm sure my pc would do far better after a fresh install too, but it is at least a useful point.

What I'm planning on doing is iSCSI storage for general stuff on a NAS I just ordered, and a SSD for os and primary games. No other hdd's in my pc at all.

iSCSI will be plenty fast for my general storage needs, and with the kids and taking heaps of hd video footage all the time, my Mybook is full so hopefully will be a good solution for a little while

You know what I'd like to have? Slower, more reliable hard drives. I'd happily sacrifice spindle speed for more reliability for my data for backups etc. I don't know if that makes a difference, I guess that's just a flat out engineering question

I guess thats what I'm doing with iSCSI, going to a RAID5 solution which will be hot swappable, so is technically slower, and more reliable, ssd will just have stuff taht can be trashed at any point.

i just bought a 150g velociraptor for $240 with my upgrade.

it kicks arse. way more so than my old twin 36g raided raptors ever did.

ssd's are not worth it when you have mechanical drives like these.

'worth it' is subjective
I've gone from 15k rpm SAS drives to ssd and I don't want to go back. let alone 10k sata

if I was on a tighter budget, sure

I guess thats what I'm doing with iSCSI, going to a RAID5 solution which will be hot swappable, so is technically slower, and more reliable, ssd will just have stuff taht can be trashed at any point.

Please remember that RAID 5 ( any raid, but 5 especially ) is no replacement for frequent backups to cold storage.

@ DecayingCorpse

I gotta agree with you m8... I have the same one and its very nice

For the price / Quality / Reliability I don't think its worth going to the SSD yet. Don't get me wrong I am keen as to run my OS on a SSD but am going to wait for a while as I still have the bad taste in m y mouth from my little SSD experience.

+1 for the New version of Velociraptor because of price / quality and speed :)

I bought a X25-M 80GB from the states about 2-3 months ago and paid about AUD$580 inc shipping. I can't fault the thing everything is very fast with no stutter. It is especially nice since they updated the firmware.

Before that I had an OCZ Core Series (the original one not V2) and it stuttered all the time which annoyed the hell out of me which is why I went with the Intel in the end. I did run a raptor before geting the OCZ Core Series.

Those of you that are recommending Velociraptor over a good SSD probably havn't had any experience with a good SSD otherwise you would not be making those recommendations. The only real factor is price which in the end it is always a decision over price and performance.

EDIT: Hi Trog, Term, Jim and co! Is Nathan still around or does he not post here ? I just realised I have 7000 odd posts which I am sure I don't frequent this forum that often. Did you merge the ausgamers and gamearena forums ? Not that i've been back to gamearena for quite a few years :)

last edited by tension at 08:35:53 27/May/09

The reasons I recommended the Vraptor was for Price / Quality / Reliability. ... Price being the first thing I mentioned :)

In time I will go the SSD just gotta wait for the price to drop and as that occurs I hope the technology will be even more refined than where it is now.

Basically, if you're cheap get a platter drive, if you want actual performance get a good ssd.

EDIT: Hi Trog, Term, Jim and co! Is Nathan still around or does he not post here ? I just realised I have 7000 odd posts which I am sure I don't frequent this forum that often. Did you merge the ausgamers and gamearena forums ? Not that i've been back to gamearena for quite a few years :)

Sup dude :> There was a bit of crossover from a billion years ago which'd prolly explain your higher-than-expected post count, yeh

Yeh I think I'm waiting a bit for the price to drop, tho I'd definitely love to replace the slaw that is my work HDD with something faster; it thrashes constantly. I'm still a bit concerned about the initial theories of shorter life spans for SDDs though from what I've seen these theories haven't actually been backed up by a lot of evidence, even anecdotal, so I guess that's something.

hey tension =] yeh nathan is still very much around (if you can call canberra around!), he posts here a bit as 'Nats'


trog: you need to wipe that windows install I reckon, those drives you have are very fast (15k rpm sas raid1 on a reasonable controller) and it really seems unusual or that something is wrong, the way they are always chunking away like that